“Nate.”
Now he stops.
For a long moment, he doesn’t turn. Just stands there with his back to me, shovel planted in the snow, shoulders rigid under his jacket.
I watch him take a breath. See his ribcage expand and contract. And then he turns around.
Gray eyes meet mine.
Ten years, and his eyes are exactly the same. That pale, piercing gray that always made me feel like he could see right through me. But the face around them has changed. Harder now. Sharper. The boyish softness carved away into something severe and unfairly attractive.
His scent reaches me a second later.
Pine and woodsmoke. Clean and sharp, with something darker underneath. It wraps around me like a memory I didn’t know I was missing, and my whole body responds. Pulsequickening, skin prickling, some deep part of me recognizingpackeven after all this time. My omega instincts flare, wanting to step closer, wanting to bury my face in his neck and breathe him in.
I fight it down. Now is not the time.
His nostrils flare. Just once. His jaw tightens, and I see his hands grip the shovel harder, knuckles going white. He’s scenting me too, and whatever he’s picking up, he doesn’t like it.
Or maybe he likes it too much.
“Ms. Donovan.”
The formality lands like a slap.
“I brought you coffee.” I hold out the mug, hating how unsteady my voice sounds. “Grandma said you take it black. I didn’t add anything, but I can go back and get sugar if you want, or cream, or—I don’t actually know if we have cream, but there’s probably milk, and I could?—”
I clamp my mouth shut.
I’m rambling. Of course I’m rambling.
“Sorry. Coffee. Here.”
He looks at the mug. Looks at me.
For a second, I think I see something flicker in his eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or memory.
Then his expression flattens, and he doesn’t take the coffee.
“I’m almost done.”
“Right. Okay.” I’m still holding the mug out like an idiot. “I just wanted to say thank you. For shoveling. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I do it every storm.” His voice is flat. Polite. Absolutely devoid of warmth. “It’s not personal.”
It’s not personal.
Three words, and they cut deeper than they should.
Of course it’s not personal. He probably helps out all the elderly neighbors. Grandma just happens to be one of them. Thefact that she’s the grandmother of his ex is irrelevant. He’d be here either way.
“Still,” I manage. “I appreciate it.”
“Noted.”
He turns back to his shoveling.
Conversation over, apparently.
